The UK's Abbey National has launched an interactive Mortgage Introducer Internet Service for third party brokers.
Research carried out by Abbey National shows that introducers, such as Independent Financial Advisers, will adopt the Internet in large numbers and it is anticipated that over 10,000 introducers will be regularly using this service within six months creating substantial savings in administration costs over the next few years.
Ambrose McGinn, Abbey National's e-commerce director says the bank expects to conduct more than half its introducer business via the Internet within a year. "We have already received guarantees of over £3 billion of mortgage business within the first 12 months from key introducer accounts," he says.
Abbey claims that introducers who use the service will be able to obtain a fully credit-checked agreement in principle for a mortgage application within 60 seconds.
Abbey recently became embroiled in a war of words with providers of third party mortgage comparison services after insisting they pull its products from their sites. The bank alleges that online price comparison operations like Moneysupermarket.com fail to provide consumers with best advice.